I never had any preconceptions about what comics could be. . . . I felt they could look like anything, they could be about anything, they could be done in any kind of way. Some of my friends who grew up with superheroes—that’s kind of a baggage that took them years of devoted effort to shed. I never really had that. From day one, comics could be anything I wanted them to be.
John Porcellino writes, draws, and publishes minicomics and graphic novels. In 1989 he began his self-published, photocopied, mostly autobiographical series King-Cat Comics and today it is among the best-known and longest-running minicomics produced.
His Ignatz Award-winning Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man is a collection of King-Cat stories about his experiences as a pest control worker, and Perfect Example chronicles his struggles with depression as a teenager. King-Cat Classix and Map of My Heart offer an overview of the zine’s first sixty-one issues, while Thoreau at Walden is a poetic expression of the philosopher’s experience and ideals.
